OF THE HOLY JUSTIN, PHILOSOPHER AND MARTYR

 power, which is absurd for what is in time is corruptible. But if, being able long ago to prevent so great an evil, he did not prevent it, he would b

 form, but ignorance of God which has spoken the falsehood which is a third form of the greatest evil, resulting for them from the voluntary disobedie

 For, he says, ignorance is often given to men for their good at any rate we see in many cases that it often happens that things known are despised mo

 the religions of the earth differ from the religion that holds the true doctrine simply by falsehood, but from each other in the differences of falseh

 the creator and God ordained the day, on which he makes an abolition of all the evils in the world arising from unbelief and disobedience to God, acco

 to God, the creator of the world, they name the parts of the world, and without the act of creating, they attribute to God the name of creator, so tha

 and in actuality which is absurd. He who remains the same, therefore, has nothing temporal. He makes the world, therefore, always ordering it, and th

 become significant and affirmative of God that all the works of God are temporal with him, it is clear that he absurdly supposed that nothing temporal

 of each other? For 'He has not so much made as He makes' is not a negation of 'to have made', but rather an affirmation of 'He has made'. But clearly,

 the sun in its substance, or according to one act of creation He made its substance and according to another act of creation its motion, and having ma

 Is not God, in respect to the powers He has but according to which He does not act, corruptible according to the judgment of the one who answered? But

 or the denial to be true, how did the respondent posit both for the generation of the world, both the affirmation and the denial, saying it is both cr

 makes different things. Let us not consider God in human terms. For not as we, who previously are one way and later change into another, are said to m

 will. How then is the will the same as the essence, when that which is willed and the will are one thing and another, just as the sensible and sensati

 by essence. But if it is essence, he who wills does not exist, but if it is added to the essence, it is necessarily one thing and another for that wh

 makes of themselves, in the same way also God, being ungenerated, ungeneratedly makes all things, not becoming but co-existing, and by the infinity of

 can. But let us not consider God's creating in a human way. For not as we, who previously are one way, and later changing into another, are said to cr

 of milk, but nature in no way makes substance all at once. How then is the respondent not using an inappropriate example, the working of nature, to re

 For first the simple, but later the composite. Just as God is beyond reproach for the weakness of power, because he did not make more worlds, but havi

 having come to its manifestation, how is it not that in the work of God all the parts of time exist? Fourth Christian question to the Greeks. If it is

 of the known ones of the world he dogmatized its ungeneratedness, nor did he establish this through proof, but only according to his own authority did

 It is clear from this, that the world is not a relative term to the creator insofar as it is an image, nor to the paradigm insofar as it is a creation

 is, he ought also to say that the creation is uncreated, since its creator is uncreated for they necessarily follow one another, the uncreated with t

 kinds, of which it is a common feature for one to be spoken of sometimes in potentiality for what they are called, and sometimes in actuality, while o

 Fifth Christian question to the Hellenes. If heaven is uncreated and God is uncreated and God dwells in heaven, how is God not insulted dwelling in th

 and having made it and to say that the world, without interval, eternally co-exists with God, the world which received its existence from the Creat

 

Is not God, in respect to the powers He has but according to which He does not act, corruptible according to the judgment of the one who answered? But if, in respect to the powers He has and according to which He does not act, He is not corruptible, then neither, when the energy of God that produces the world ceases, is God corrupted in His energy. For He acts as much as He wills, and not as much as He is able; and the withdrawal of the energy does not make God corruptible. Nor, then, when He withdraws the energy, does He withdraw it through a change of power; but the power of God is always unchangeable, and He uses the energies for as long as He wills. For God does not act in the way that those things act which have their being in acting, and which, when their energy ceases, themselves also cease to be, such as fire and snow. For if God acts in this way, He acts not so much for the sake of the things that come to be as for the sake of His own being, so that if He should cease from acting, He would also cease to be. But if this is absurd, then it is also absurd to say that the power of God is changeable through the withdrawal of energy, or that His substance is shaken by the varied energies, putting forth different ones at different times. And just as God, in making us first infants, then youths, then old men, does not do so through a change of power, nor through a corruption of energy, nor through His substance being shaken, alternating our ages at different times, which differ from one another in their being first and later, but through the projection and withdrawal of energy, so His energy has a beginning and an end not through a change of power, but through projection and withdrawal. For if, when the energy was withdrawn, God were no longer able to use the ceased energy, it would rightly be called a corruption of energy; but if He is always able to project the same energy, whenever He wills, then the energy of God is not corrupted when it is withdrawn. For with the power not being corrupted, it is impossible for the energy to be corrupted. For the corruption of energy is one thing, and the withdrawal of energy is another, so that, if the energy that makes the world were not withdrawn, an infinite number of worlds would have come into being according to the unceasing energy. But now, with only one world having come into being, by the finite nature of the work is shown the finite nature of the energy that made the world. Remaining the same, therefore, He has nothing temporal. Therefore He makes the world, ordering it always, and the world comes to be by being always guarded, but by always being the same, it exists ungenerated. If God has nothing temporal, then neither does He have the act of making; for making is temporal. And if God makes the world, without producing its substance, He does not make the world; for the world without substance is not a world. But if the world has an unmade substance, of necessity it is also unguarded; for that which it does not need for its coming to be in substance, it does not need for its being guarded either; for an ungenerated nature is receptive of nothing from outside itself. And if in every case one must either the affirmation

οὐκ ἔστιν ὁ θεὸς καθ' ἃς ἔχει μὲν δυνάμεις, μὴ ἐνεργῶν δὲ κατ' αὐτάς, φθαρτὸς κατὰ τὴν κρίσιν τοῦ ἀποκριναμένου; Eἰ δὲ καθ' ἃς ἔχει δυνάμεις, καὶ μὴ ἐνεργῶν κατ' αὐτάς, φθαρτὸς οὐκ ἔστιν, οὐδ' ἄρα παυσαμένης τῆς ἐνεργείας τοῦ θεοῦ, τῆς τὸν κόσμον παραγούσης, φθείρεται θεὸς τῇ ἐνεργείᾳ. Ὅσον δὴ καὶ βούλεται, καὶ οὐχ ὅσον δύναται, ἐνεργεῖ· καὶ οὐ ποιεῖ φθαρτὸν τὸν θεὸν ἡ τῆς ἐνεργείας συστολή. Oὐδ' ἄρα, ὅταν συστέλλῃ τὴν ἐνέργειαν, κατὰ μεταβολὴν συστέλλει τῆς δυνάμεως· ἀλλ' ἔστι μὲν ἡ δύναμις τοῦ θεοῦ ἀεὶ ἀμετά βλητος, κέχρηται δὲ ταῖς ἐνεργείαις ἐφ' ὅσον βούλεται. Oὐ γὰρ ἐνεργεῖ θεὸς καθάπερ ἐνεργοῦσιν οἱ ἐν τῷ ἐνεργεῖν τὸ εἶναι ἔχοντες, καὶ παυσαμένης τῆς ἐνεργείας παύσονται καὶ αὐτοὶ τοῦ εἶναι, οἷον τὸ πῦρ καὶ ἡ χιών. Eἰ γὰρ οὕτως ἐνεργεῖ θεός, οὐχ ἕνεκεν τῶν γινομένων μᾶλλον ἢ ἕνεκεν τοῦ εἶναι αὐτὸν ἐνεργεῖ, ὡς, εἰ παύσοιτο τοῦ ἐνεργεῖν, παύσεται καὶ τοῦ εἶναι. Eἰ δὲ ἄτοπον τοῦτο, ἄτοπον ἄρα καὶ τὸ λέγειν μετα βλητὴν τὴν τοῦ θεοῦ δύναμιν τῇ συστολῇ τῆς ἐνεργείας, ἢ σα λευομένην τὴν οὐσίαν αὐτοῦ ταῖς ποικίλαις ἐνεργείαις ἄλλοτε ἄλλας προβαλλομένην. Καὶ καθάπερ ποιῶν ἡμᾶς ὁ θεὸς πρῶτον μὲν βρέφη, ἔπειτα δὲ νεανίσκους, εἶτα γέροντας, οὐ κατὰ τὴν μεταβολὴν ποιεῖ τῆς δυνάμεως, οὐδὲ κατὰ τὴν φθο ρὰν τῆς ἐνεργείας, οὔτε κατὰ τὴν σαλευομένην αὐτοῦ οὐσίαν, ἐναλλάσσων ἡμῶν τὰς ἡλικίας κατὰ διαφόρους καιροὺς τῷ πρώτῳ καὶ ὑστέρῳ ἀλλήλων διαφερούσας, ἀλλὰ κατὰ τὴν προ βολὴν καὶ συστολὴν τῆς ἐνεργείας, οὕτως οὐ κατὰ τὴν μετα βολὴν τῆς δυνάμεως ἀρχὴν καὶ τέλος ἡ ἐνέργεια αὐτοῦ ἔχει, ἀλλὰ κατὰ προβολὴν καὶ συστολήν. Eἰ μὲν γὰρ συστελλομένης τῆς ἐνεργείας οὐκέτι ἠδύνατο ὁ θεὸς τῇ παυσαμένῃ ἐνεργείᾳ κεχρῆ σθαι, δικαίως ἂν ἐλέγετο φθορὰ ἐνεργείας· εἰ δὲ ἀεὶ δύναται τὴν αὐτὴν ἐνέργειαν, ὅτε βούλεται, προβάλλεσθαι, οὐκ ἄρα φθείρεται ἡ ἐνέργεια τοῦ θεοῦ συστελλομένη. Τῆς γὰρ δυνά μεως μὴ φθειρομένης ἀδύνατον φθαρῆναι τὴν ἐνέργειαν. Ἄλλη γάρ ἐστιν ἡ φθορὰ τῆς ἐνεργείας, καὶ ἄλλη ἡ συστολὴ τῆς ἐνεργείας, ὡς, εἰ μὴ συνεστέλλετο ἡ ἐνέργεια ἡ τὸν κόσμον ποιοῦσα, ἄπειροι ἂν κόσμοι ἐγένοντο τῷ πλήθει κατὰ τὴν ἄπαυστον ἐνέργειαν. Νῦν δέ, ἑνὸς μόνου τοῦ κόσμου γενομέ νου, τῷ πεπερασμένῳ τοῦ ἔργου δείκνυται πεπερασμένη ἡ ἐνέρ γεια ἡ τὸν κόσμον ποιήσασα. Ὁ αὐτὸς τοίνυν μένων οὐδὲν ἔχει ἔγχρονον. Ποιεῖ τοί νυν τὸν κόσμον, τάττων αὐτὸν ἀεί, καὶ ὁ κόσμος τῷ μὲν ἀεὶ φρουρεῖσθαι γίνεται, τῷ δὲ ἀεὶ εἶναι ὁ αὐτὸς ἀγένητος ὑπάρ χει. Eἰ μηδὲν ἔχει ἔγχρονον ὁ θεός, οὐδ' ἄρα τὸ ποιεῖν ἔχει· ἔγχρονον γὰρ τὸ ποιεῖν. Καὶ εἰ ποιεῖ τὸν κόσμον ὁ θεός, μὴ τὴν οὐσίαν αὐτοῦ παράγων, οὐ ποιεῖ τὸν κόσμον· ὁ γὰρ κόσμος χωρὶς οὐσίας οὐκ ἔστι κόσμος. Eἰ δὲ ὁ κόσμος οὐσίαν ἔχει ἀποίητον, ἐξ ἀνάγκης καὶ ἀφρούρητός ἐστιν· οὗ γὰρ πρὸς τὸ γενέσθαι κατ' οὐσίαν οὐ δέεται, τούτου οὐδὲ πρὸς τὸ φρου ρεῖσθαι ἐπιδέεται· ἡ γὰρ ἀγένητος φύσις οὐδενὸς τῶν ἔξωθεν ἑαυτῆς ἐστιν ἐπιδεκτική. Καὶ εἰ ἐπὶ παντὸς χρὴ ἢ τὴν φάσιν